Catalog
European Studies
Professors Decker (German and Russian Studies), López (Spanish), and Richter (Politics); Associate Professor Browne (German and Russian Studies); Assistant Professors Cernahoschi (German and Russian Studies), Kazecki (German and Russian Studies), and Shaw (History); Senior Lecturer George (Spanish, chair)
The Program in European Studies reinforces the college's mission to engage students in a journey of intellectual discovery and informed global citizenship. European studies is a multifaceted interdisciplinary program that broadens students' understanding of the region and encourages them to question assumptions about Europe's role in the world in the last two centuries. Courses offered in European studies (EUS or EU) are taught in English.
The establishment of the European Union and the intricate processes of negotiating national identities are recent and contentious steps toward greater political, economic, and cultural collaboration. At the same time, national politics, cultures, histories, sports and entertainment, arts, economies, and languages continue to play a role in defining what Europe is today and what it will become in the future.
The contemporary complexities of European history, society, politics, and languages can only be fully understood by transcending disciplinary boundaries. Courses offered by a variety of departments and programs provide a rich resource for European studies and ensure an interdisciplinary approach to cultural texts and their sociopolitical contexts. More information on European studies may be found on the website (bates.edu/european-studies/).
Major Requirements
The major in European studies consists of ten courses plus a thesis. The courses are distributed as follows:1) Foundation Courses.
HIST 104. Europe, 1789 to the Present.
One of the following:
EUS 101. Introduction to European Studies.
FYS 297. The Idea of Europe.
2) Language Courses. One of the following sequences:
Four courses above the 100 level in French, German, Russian, or Spanish
Two courses above the 100 level in two of French, German, Russian, and Spanish.
3) Electives. Three elective courses, in at least two different disciplines, from the list below:
AVC 280. The Art of the Eighteenth Century.
AVC 281. Realism and Impressionism.
AVC 282. Modern European Art.
AVC 284. Revolutions and Romanticisms.
AVC 290. Modern Architecture.
AVC s28. Desiring Italy.
ECON 221. The World Economy.
ENG 121H. The Brontës.
ENG 121K. Frankenstein's Creatures.
ENG 220. Dickens Revised.
ENG 238. Jane Austen: Then and Now.
ENG 243. Romantic Literature (1790–1840.
ENG 245. Sexuality in Victorian Literature.
ENG 254. Modern British Literature since 1900.
ENG 264. Modern Irish Poetry.
ES/RU 216. Nature in Russian Culture.
ES/RU s20. Environment and Culture in Russia.
EUS 120. Kusturica: Gentle Barbarian or Barbaric Gentleman?
EU/GR 220. Remembering the War: The Great War, Memory, and Remembrance in Europe.
EUS 240. Daily Life under Hitler and Stalin.
EUS 248. Narratives of the Austrian-Hungarian Empire.
EUS 261. Slavic Culture.
EUS s20. Transylvanian Journey: Myth, Reality, and the Traveler "beyond the Forest."
EU/GR s21. Weimar and Berlin: German Culture in European Context.
EUS s26. Russian and Soviet Film.
FRE 251. Introduction to French Literature II.
FRE s36. The Evolution of French Cinema.
GER 241. German Modernisms.
GER 244. Staged Marriages.
GER 262. The Split Screen: Reconstructing National Identities in West and East German
Cinema.
GER 264. World War I in German Culture.
GER 270. Living with the Nazi Legacy.
HIST 217. Race in Modern Europe, 1750 to the Present.
HIST 234. The Enlightenment.
HIST 235. Britain in the World/The World in Britain, 1790–1990.
HIST 254. Revolutionary Europe and Its Legacies, 1789–1989.
HIST 256. British Modernity, 1688–to the Present.
PHIL 273. Philosophy in the Nineteenth Century.
PLTC 125. States and Markets.
PLTC 222. International Political Economy.
PLTC 232. The Politics of Post-Communism.
PLTC 260. Nationalism and Nation Building.
PLTC 295. Reading Marx, Rethinking Marxisms.
PLTC 333. State Formation, State Development, State Collapse.
SPAN 251. Spanish Short Story.
SPAN 345. Twentieth-Century Spanish Drama.
SPAN 362. Culture in Franco Spain.
SPAN 368. Realism.
SPAN s29. Cinema in Spain.
THEA 220. The Modern Stage: Ibsen to O'Neill.
THEA 222. The Modern Stage: Beckett to the Present.
THEA s33. Central European Theater and Film.
4) Senior Thesis Sequence.
a) one upper-level seminar from following courses at Bates:
AVC 390B. Pre-Raphaelitism to Modernism.
ENG 395A. Godard and European Film.
ENG 395D. Victorian Crime Fiction.
EU/SP 351. Iberian Modernisms.
FRE 373. Close-up on the Enlightenment: Film, Text, Context.
FRE 374. Ècrire la Rèvolution: French Literature in the Nineteenth Century.
FRE 375. The French Dis/Connection in Contemporary Literature.
FRE 376. Femmes, Ècrivanies.
GER 350. Margins and Migrations.
GER 356. Representing Austrian Fascism.
GER 357. Austrian Literature.
GER 358. Literature and Film of the German Democratic Republic.
INDS 390A. Sex and the Modern City: European Cultures at the Fin-de-Siècle.
HIST 390X. "Self-Evident Truths": A History of Human Rights and Humanitarianism.
PLTC 344. Ethnicity and Conflict.
SOC 395A. European Integration: Politics, Society, and Geography.
SPAN 444. Gendering Social Awareness in Contemporary Spain.
SPAN 447. Building Memory: Narratives of the Spanish Civil War.
b) EUS 457, 458. Senior Thesis.
Double Majors
Students who are double majors in European studies and French, German, Russian, or Spanish must complete at least seven distinct courses (plus the thesis) that count toward the European studies major.Study Abroad
Study abroad in Europe is encouraged but not required to complete the major. Up to four courses from approved study-abroad programs may be counted toward the language or elective courses, with the approval of the program chair.Pass/Fail Grading Option
Students may count either one 100- or 200-level elective or one 200-level language course taken pass/fail toward the major.Courses
EUS 101. Introduction to European Studies.
This course introduces students to major themes in European studies, considering the dynamic processes by which Europe and European identities have been defined since the cold war. They examine, among other questions, how Europe has changed in the wake of new economic and political realities, with the formation of international organizations, and in the face of shifting ethnic, religious, and cultural landscapes. By investigating these topics from various perspectives, students gain the interdisciplinary tools to understand the intricacies of an ever-changing Europe. Not open to students who have received credit for FYS 297. Normally offered every year. D. Browne.Interdisciplinary Programs
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
EUS 120. Kusturica: Gentle Barbarian or Barbaric Gentleman?.
Emir Nemanja Kusturica is one of the most celebrated contemporary filmmakers in Europe; he is also one of the most controversial. His films have brought him numerous festival awards including two Golden Palms at Cannes and a César, the French Oscar. But they have also brought severe criticism from some of Europe's intellectual celebrities such as Alain Finkielkraut and Slavoj Zizek. In this course, students examine all of Kusturica's feature films, and look at the social and political furor his work has generated since the mid 1990s. Films are subtitlted in English. Not open to students who have received credit for RUSS 120. Enrollment limited to 60. Staff.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EU/HI 206. The Empire Strikes Back; Or, the Ends of European Empires in the Twentieth Century.
In 1918, Woodrow Wilson famously outlined his Fourteen Points emphasizing the right of subject peoples to self-determination. While Wilson's was hardly the first critique of empire, it provided a framework for increasingly organized anti-colonial movements. Just as European empires reached their zenith, older rationales for empire became harder to maintain. Yet the end(s) of European empires were long in the making. Many would argue that we have yet to live in a postcolonial world. This course explores the changing arguments over the future of European empires, the contests for power, and their effects on individuals' lives across the globe. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 40. Normally offered every other year. C. Shaw.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EU/GR 220. Remembering War: The Great War, Memory, and Remembrance in Europe.
The course focuses on ways in which the experience of the First World War changed established narratives of violence and armed conflict in Central Europe. It investigates how the new narratives became sites of memory, mourning, and remembrance in the twentieth and twenty-first centuries drawing on the examples from Germany, Poland, Czechoslovakia, and Hungary. Normally offered every other year. J. Kazecki.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EUS 240. Daily Life under Hitler and Stalin.
In this course, students examine everyday life in two of the twentieth century's most brutal political systems: Hitler's Nazi Germany and Stalin's USSR. They pay particular attention to how these two totalitarian regimes dominated the public sphere from the late 1920s to the end of World War II, and examine the question of agency: To what extent were the citizens of the Third Reich and the USSR manipulated subjects, willing participants, or sympathetic fellow travelers? Not open to students who have received credit for INDS s13. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. D. Browne.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
EUS 248. Narratives of the Austro-Hungarian Empire.
Created by the Compromise of 1867 as a dual monarchy, the Austro-Hungarian Empire comprised more than a dozen linguistic and many more ethnic and religious groups. While Vienna was the undisputed cultural capital of the Empire, local urban centers produced a remarkably diverse cultural landscape. Through readings, films, and art by Austrian, Polish, Czech, Romanian, Hungarian, and Jewish artists, students explore this multicultural periphery and consider national, ethnic, class, religious, and gender identities; conflict and cooperation in an age of nationalism; the relationship between center and margins; colonial and postcolonial attitudes; and the legacies of the Empire in today's Central and Eastern Europe. Open to first-year students. Enrollment limited to 30. [W2] R. Cernahoschi.ConcentrationsInterdisciplinary Programs
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
This course counts toward the following Interdisciplinary Program(s)
EU/GR 254. Berlin and Vienna, 1900–1914.
From the beginning of the twentieth century to the outbreak of World War I, the capital cities of Berlin and Vienna were home to major political and cultural developments, including diverse modernist movements in art, architecture, literature, and music, as well as the growth of mass party politics. The ascending German Empire and the multiethnic Habsburg Empire teetering on the verge of collapse provide the context within which this course examines important texts of fin-de-siècle modernism. Topics include urban growth and planning, German Expressionism, Austrian Impressionism, early German cinema, and Freud's case studies of hysteria. Conducted in English.Reinstated and cross-listed beginning Fall 2015. Not open to students who have received credit for GER 254. Open to first-year students. C. Decker.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EUS 261. Slavic Europe.
A topical survey of Slavic culture as realized in a number of social institutions including the family, the church, the popular media, and the arts. Particular attention is given to texts, which examine both real and imagined communities and the unities and disunities that shape the identities of Europe's largest language family and the peoples who occupy more than half of the European continent. Not open to students who have received credit for RUSS 261. Open to first-year students. [W2] D. Browne.EU/SP 324. Memories of Civil War in European Film and Literature.
Issues of memory and postmemory are one of the most relevant concerns in contemporary European culture. This course explores how these concerns are represented in film and narratives of several European civil wars in the twentieth century. Although the main focus is on representations of the Spanish conflict, students also consider the cases of the former Yugoslavia, Ireland, and Greece. Theories of memory (cultural and collective) and postmemory provide the framework for textual and cultural analysis. Recommended background: at least one course on Spanish (Spain), French, German, Russian, or English literature. New course beginning Fall 2015. Enrollment limited to 15. Normally offered every other year. F. López.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EU/SP 351. Iberian Modernisms: Modernity, Literature and Crisis in Portugal and Spain.
This course explores literary and artistic responses to the social, political, and cultural crises of modernity in Portugal and Spain from 1890 to 1934. It traces the emergence of the concept of the "modern" in early twentieth-century Europe, and examines the particular forms and content of Iberian modernism in terms of key themes: language, the unconscious, sexuality and gender, religion, liberalism, Europe as Other, empire, and cosmopolitanism. Students discuss works translated into English by Portuguese and Spanish authors such as Antonio Machado, Fernando Pessoa, Pio Baroja, Concha Espina, and Mário Sá-Caneiro as well as contemporary film, art, and critical readings in history and cultural theory. Enrollment limited to 15. Normally offered every other year. D. George.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EUS 360. Independent Study.
Students, in consultation with a faculty advisor, individually design and plan a course of study or research not offered in the curriculum. Course work includes a reflective component, evaluation, and completion of an agreed-upon product. Sponsorship by a faculty member in the program/department, a course prospectus, and permission of the chair are required. Students may register for no more than one independent study per semester. Normally offered every semester. Staff.INDS 390A. Sex and the Modern City: European Cultures at the Fin-de-Siècle .
Economic and political change during the 1800s revolutionized the daily lives of Europeans more profoundly than any previous century. By the last third of the century, the modern city became the stage for exploring and enacting new roles, new gender identities in particular. This course examines the cultural reverberations of these cataclysmic changes by focusing on sex, gender, and new urban spaces the decades around the turn of the twentieth century. Students consider the writings of Zola and Freud, investigate middle-class flirtations with the occult, and read about sensational crimes like those of Jack the Ripper. Cross-listed in European studies, history, women and gender studies. Enrollment limited to 15. [W2] Normally offered every other year. C. Shaw.EUS 457. Senior Thesis.
This course involves research for and writing of the senior thesis, under the direction of a faculty advisor. Students register for EUS 457 in the fall semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for EUS 457 in the fall semester and EUS 458 in the winter semester. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.EUS 458. Senior Thesis.
This course involves research for and writing of the senior thesis, under the direction of a faculty advisor. Students register for EUS 458 in the winter semester. Majors writing an honors thesis register for EUS 457 in the fall semester and EUS 458 in the winter semester. [W3] Normally offered every year. Staff.EUS s20. Transylvanian Journey: Myth, Reality, and the Traveler "beyond the Forest.".
Transylvania—"The Land beyond the Forest"—is known in popular culture as the mythical home of Dracula and the locale of awe-inspiring adventures. This course offers students the chance to investigate some of the persisting myths about Transylvania, their origins and their transmission, as well as the reassessment of the province's image since the removal of Romania's communist government in 1989. On campus, students familiarize themselves with the complexities of Transylvania's image through readings and discussions of travel narratives before traveling to Transylvania for a two-week tour in preparation for their own collaborative travel account. Enrollment limited to 14. Instructor permission is required. R. Cernahoschi.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EU/GR s21. Weimar and Berlin: German Culture in European Context.
The course traces the sociopolitical transformations that inform Germany's current role in the European Union through the example of two very different capitals: Weimar, the sleepy hamlet turned Germany's premier intellectual center, and Berlin, the once-divided city reinvented as intercultural meeting place. Using selected sites in the two cities, students focus on key moments in German history, which absorbed international trends and, in turn, reverberated across Europe. On campus and in Germany, students learn about important intellectual developments from the Reformation to the present day, cultural personalities and artifacts, and the crises and cooperations that produced them. Enrollment limited to 16. Normally offered every other year. R. Cernahoschi, J. Kazecki.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EU/PT s22. Politics of Memory in Central and Eastern Europe.
The twentieth century cast a long shadow over Eastern and Central Europe: two world wars, several mass expulsions and deportations, the imposition of Soviet-style dictatorships, and, most tragically, the Holocaust. Each country has its share of victims, villains, heroes, cowards, and collaborators. Efforts to make sense of this history, even after all these years, remain a topic of intense political debate. This course examines historical writings, films, museums, and monuments to examine the politics of memory in East and Central Europe. Why does historical memory of these events continue to have such emotional and political power in this region? What choices are made in memorializing history, and what are their contemporary political implications? Course reinstated and crosslisted beginning Short Term 2015. Enrollment limited to 30. J. Richter.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations
EUS s23. Dracula Looks in the Mirror: Popular Imagination and Transcultural Adaptation.
Dracula is one of the most widely adapted literary figures, with roots in both history and myth. In this course, studenst investigate the origins of the figure as well as into its multiple transcultural reflections. Through the figure of Dracula, we also investigate questions about the forms, processes, agents, audiences, and contexts of adaptations. A creative component allows students to adapt Dracula to a context of their own choice. New course beginning Short Term 2015. Enrollment limited to 30. Normally offered every other year. R. Cernahoschi.EUS s26. Russian and East European Film.
From the early years of the Russian avant-garde to the post-Communist era of blockbusters, Russian and East European cinema offers an intriguing and important perspective on life in Europe. This course introduces students to the avant-garde cinema of Eisenstein and Vertov, the Soviet propaganda films of the 1930s, the Czech New Wave, the Yugoslav Black Wave, the Polish Film School, the aesthetic and moral questions of post-Communist filmmakers, and new directions in filmmaking of the twenty-first century. Films are in the original languages, with subtitles. All reading and writing is in English. Not open to students who have received credit for RUSS s26. D. Browne.Concentrations
This course is referenced by the following General Education Concentrations